Saragossa

Emperor Caesar Augustus gave the name to the noble city of Saragossa, where the ruins of Roman walls and of an aqueduct, dating back to the imperial age, are still to be found today, as well as an imposing baroque cathedral on the Ebro river and a bronze statue of the eponymous Emperor, a copy of the original one kept in Rome, recently donated at an Italian-Spanish twinning event; the original statue “hails” pedestrians in one of Rome’s main streets.
 
About twenty kilometres from the city centre lies the Saint Gregarious firing range, a hilly, large estate on reddish earth,  encircled by mistletoe pines, with Spanish Army buildings, kindly made available to OTO Melara and OTO Melara Iberica (OMI) to conduct several shooting tests with the HITFIST® turret.
 
In fact, on 23rd of January, the first HITFIST® 3 mm turret, assembled in Valencia by OMI and installed on a Piranha II Mowag vehicle, was presented to about fifty military and industrial guests - both Spanish and foreign - who might be potentially interested in purchasing the turret.

At first, the system performed some manoeuvres and virtuosity tests, then the shooting began, starting with the simplest ones, featuring an immobile vehicle and target, then moving on to mobile vehicles and targets: in any case, owing to the quality of the product and to the shooters’ skills, the target was hit and often taken down by the very first shot, despite the constant, cold and sharp north wind.
 
There were two TV cameras, one filming the vehicle and the other filming the target. Two large LCD screens were placed in the firing range stone tower to allow the participants to follow the test in detail, albeit it was possible to directly see the shooting test from the large glass windows of the tower.  
 
Lengthy applause and deserved congratulations for each participant concluded the event, together with a sampling of the Spanish jamón serrano ham, which the Italians like so much.

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